Soundwise

Paul P
This doesn't help for the freebies scattered all over the place, but do you really need them ?

You never know. Some free plugs are superior to paid for ones. 

I know this exact feeling. :)
 
Tried out TH2 a while back, didn't like it very much. Downloaded TSB-1, TPA-1 and Emissary from Ignite Amps as well as LePou's amp sims and cab convolver, bought some cheap IRs from RedWirez. Never looked back. Quality is amazing, probably the best (and cheapest) way to do guitar chain simulation. Cost me $40 CAD or so in IRs but the signal path to use them was free.

We need a license swap/exchange/gifting forum section... several of us gifted unused licenses to others on the iZotope loyalty upgrade deal, helping each other... I donated Trash2+ and Alloy licenses which I ended up having because another awesome dude with a 3 letter name bit on a post I made and enabled me to get the upgrade...so far it's gone into a 4 layer sequential regifting...
 
would really be cool... those in need would prosper from others with unused abundance...

irvin
Thanks for the kind words. I feel we often don't get the best of the wonderful tools at our disposal. I'm 55, a 'veteran' of the music scene, going back to the 80's and tape machines. I went through the ADAT 'revolution' and my journey has made me very appreciative of all we have: it's a small marvel to think what products like Sonar and others I won't mention can get us for a very small price.

We can do far more in our PC than what the best engineers could do at the long-deceased multi-million Variety studios in midtown New York thirty years ago (young guys know about Pultec emulations, but nobody talks about the balls needed to do tape splicing on a 2" master - there was no Control-Z back then) The only thing the digital revolution has not made available to us is a nice recording room, but even the cheap microphones and audio interfaces are delivering great quality. All we need to enjoy this great era is to spend enough time learning our tools.

 
I could hang out with you Irvin!  

irvin
We are always putting ourselves exactly one step behind the perfect music-making situation; we are always forgetting the public does not care (or even know) wether that little hook they love about song X is a banjo or a freaking trombone!

On their phones, they couldn't tell the difference even if they knew what it was .  But I agree that what's good in music has nothing to do with the quality of sound reproduction.  One has only to listen to Lomax recordings to be convinced.
 

irvin
The only thing the digital revolution has not made available to us is a nice recording room, but even the cheap microphones and audio interfaces are delivering great quality. All we need to enjoy this great era is to spend enough time learning our tools.

At least when everything was made in a studio you could attain a high level of reproduction provided you had a quality reproduction system at the receiving end.  Electronic musical elements may not be much of a problem but for acoustic recording you better have a reasonable room.  Otherwise those with quality systems will just hear in great detail the lousy room that was used to record in.  And if they have a quality system, they're probably also trained to hear what's going on in the recording and won't be impressed.
 

Looking forward to the new CA-X!
 

Love the Wes
 
WOW a whole year to come up with the amps ..That is Impressive ...
 
Right now I'm sticking to my plan of only using one computer for my learning SONAR woodshed experiment .
Everything I have used for years is now put away . One computer for everything and I'm focusing on one DAW only .SONAR .
My current VST scan shows 90 ....that includes a couple of must haves I haven't used yet ....
 
I'm enjoying this self imposed learning plan. It has cut down on many of the distractions and time waster moves I was doing before.
 
Kenny

LpMike75
True story, I am terrified of upgrading my PC due to having to DL, update, re-register all of the plug ins.  I have no idea where some of them even came from at this point!  All those freebee deals over the years, who could resist?

 
I resisted upgrading to Windows 10 because I didn't want to wipe the drive clean and re-install everything from scratch, which was the recommended way to upgrade prior to Windows 10. However, with Windows 10 you can do an in-place upgrade, no need to wipe anything or start over. In fact when the upgrade was done and my desktop appeared, I was bummed because I thought the update hadn't worked - everything on the desktop was where I left it. But it had updated! 
 
Windows 10 has improved performance, works great with SONAR, and has some really useful features. The only complication was a couple times, Windows asked if I wanted to re-install a driver. So I clicked yes and all was well.
 
I haven't shaken out every single corner of my setup, but I have to say Windows 10 is the most painless OS upgrade I've ever experienced.
 

Always knew you were a 10.

Seriously though; Win 10 is with out a doubt Microsoft's best OS to date. Welcome to the club.